Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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ND SPORTS the past 24 years," Brown said. "I've been blessed beyond measure through the relationships with my student-ath- letes and my coaching and support staffs. I will cherish the memories for- ever. "My primary goal has been to pro- vide a great experience for our stu- dent-athletes, and winning is certainly a part of having a great experience. Unfortunately, the wins did not come as needed the past couple years. Great things are in store for the program in the immediate future, and I will for- ever be its biggest fan and supporter." Before those wins stopped coming, Brown led the Irish to 15 regular-sea- son conference championships, 13 con- ference tournament championships and five trips to the round of 16 in the NCAA Tournament. Dating back to her time at Arizona State (1983-88), Brown led the way to 26 consecutive winning seasons, a streak broken only a year ago, precipitating this year 's complete collapse. "Debbie has probably understood what Notre Dame and its student-ath- lete experience is about as well as any coach on our staff," Swarbrick said. "She has represented the university in exceptional fashion in her time here." That time ended in disappointment. Swarbirck said Notre Dame would conduct a national search for its next coach. OLYMPIC TURNOVER Notre Dame lost more than a cen- tury of coaching experience in 2014. Five Irish head coaches who had been leading their respective programs for at least 12 years — topping out at 39 years — retired, were dismissed or moved on to greener pastures. Factoring in volleyball coach Deb- bie Brown's and fencing coach Janusz Bednarski's contributions, Notre Dame lost a total of 119 years of expe- rience, 1,755 career victories (and that does not account for the hundreds of track meets Joe Piane led the Irish in), 84 conference championships and five national titles. After 39 years leading both the men's and women's track & field and men's cross country programs, Piane retired following the 2013-14 season. His four-decade tenure was the second longest in school history, trailing only former baseball coach Jake Kline's 42 seasons (1934-75). Under Piane, Irish runners won 34 team conference championships. Tim Welsh spent 29 seasons lead- ing the Notre Dame men's swimming team before retiring with a 321-178 record and 22 conference titles. Welsh returned to Notre Dame this fall as in- terim women's swimming and diving coach after the abrupt resignation of Brian Barnes. The above totals do not factor in Barnes' six seasons as head coach before he stepped aside for fam- ily reasons. Randy Waldrum led the women's soccer program to national champion- ships in 2004 and 2010, accumulating a 292-58-17 record and 12 conference titles in his 15 seasons. With the two seasons ending in victories, he joins Bednarski as two of only seven Notre Dame coaches to win multiple na- tional championships. ✦